


Burning out his fuse up here alone

by caranfindel



Series: Season 11 codas [3]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: 11.02, Episode Tag, Episode: s11e02 Form and Void, Gen, episode coda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-04
Updated: 2016-03-04
Packaged: 2018-05-24 14:18:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,039
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6156322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/caranfindel/pseuds/caranfindel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Another 11.02 tag. You probably shouldn't read it. Because it was written quickly and sloppily and, well. Reasons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning out his fuse up here alone

The flashback hits him like being stabbed in the heart; it's quick and brutal, a reminder of the days when Lucifer tired of emotional torture and went straight for the physical, and it leaves him gasping on the floor crying "what does that mean?!"

An unexpected voice answers from the dark end of the corridor. "What do you _think_ it means, Sam?" As his vision clears, a figure slowly moves toward him from out of the darkness, and eventually he makes out the birdlike face of Death peering down at him. 

"But you're..." Sam stammers. "I thought Dean..." 

"Killed me?" Death chuckles humorlessly. "I know you think the world of your brother, but did you really think he could _kill_ Death?" 

"I did, I guess. I don't know. It didn't seem possible," Sam has to admit. "But my life has seemed impossible for a pretty long time." 

Death's smile is almost affectionate. "I'm sure it has." 

Sam slowly climbs to his feet. His head is pounding, and he can still feel the echo of the hooks biting into his flesh. "So, um. I guess you're here because I'm dead." _(I'm sorry, Dean. I tried.)_

"My dear boy," he says kindly. "You've actually been dead, in the veil, for quite some time." 

_"For some time?"_ Sam slumps against the wall, stunned. "Dean killed me after all?" 

"You didn't die in that restaurant. It happened long before the Darkness." Death takes a seat and plucks a cup of pudding from the meal cart. "Your soul has been resisting it, presumably because you don't want to leave your brother, but the fact is you left him some time ago. And it's time to move on." 

"I don't understand," Sam says. "How could I not know I was dead?" 

"Think about the last few years of your life, Sam. Every time you've faced death? Every time you've offered to die? It was your subconscious trying to get your soul to accept what has already happened." 

"But when?" Sam asks, his mind reeling. "How long? When did I die?" 

"Sam. I know your life has never been easy, but at what point it turn... _unnaturally_ difficult?" 

_When I was six months old,_ he wants to say, but he knows that's not right. That was the beginning of the roller coaster, but the pinnacle, the point at which things kept going downhill even if there were small upswings in between plunges, comes to him easily. 

"Cold Oak," he says. "When Dean sold his soul to bring me back." 

Death smiles. "Bingo." 

"You mean... I've actually been dead all this time," Sam gasps, "since Jake stabbed me?" 

"Sam, you were so reluctant to leave your brother behind that your soul created a dreamworld - a particularly unpleasant one, I might add - in which he sells his soul to bring you back to life. And then the guilt over that forced you to punish yourself, seemingly for years." 

Sam leans his head back against the wall. It feels solid and real, but if Death is telling the truth, it's not. It's all in his head. "I died after Cold Oak. Nothing that happened after that was real." 

"Real to you. Not to anyone else. You've been hunting monsters that don't exist. Loving people who don't exist. You created Charlie and Kevin in your own image, as the intelligent misfit orphans, to give Dean someone to love and protect, and then you punished yourself by killing them. You created the angel Castiel in your mind to give Dean a brother figure to hunt with, and quarrel with, when you're gone." 

"Cas isn't real? Dean never went to Hell?" 

"Nor did you." 

"I don't care about me. But if Dean didn't really go to Hell..." 

"No, Dean didn't really go to Hell. He mourned your death and carried on. Does that bother you?" 

_No, God, no._ It's exactly what Sam would have wanted. And it turns out he had it all along. He looks at the ridiculous excuse for a life he's been leading since Cold Oak, at the long unspooling thread of death and betrayal, broken promises and broken hearts, and thinks _why? Why did I do that? Why did I think I was that important?_ But it doesn't matter now. It's over. 

"What do I do now?" he asks, standing up straight. 

Death stands to meet him. "Are you ready to move on?" 

"Can I say goodbye to Dean?" 

Death shakes his head. "Dean said goodbye to you a long time ago. I don't think it would be kind to ask him to do that again." 

"Is he okay?" 

"He never went to Hell. He didn't get involved in the affairs of angels. I think he's probably as close to _okay_ as he's ever likely to be, don't you?" 

Sam sighs. Death is right. He's got to walk away from Dean, knowing that Dean was able to walk away from him. 

"I'm ready." 

Suddenly there's a glowing presence next to him. He turns toward it and stares in disbelief. Years ago, Jessica stopped being the woman he loved and became just a symbol of all that he'd lost. But now she's right there, holding out her hand, and he loves her the way he loved her when they were both 22 years old with their whole lives ahead of them. "Come on, baby," she says softly. "Come with me." Sam looks back at Death, who nods and smiles as warmly as Death can, then takes her hand and steps out of the veil. 

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_Such sentimentality, brother. A soft-hearted old fool? Isn't that what you called me, when I created a construct of Heaven for my vessel's soul?_

Lucifer hums, and his aura glows red with delight. _That's one way of looking at it. I prefer to consider it the perfect setup for what I'm planning next. I don't think you'll be calling me a soft-hearted old fool when I let him believe he's waking up in a mental hospital in Palo Alto._

. 

. 

The title is from Elton John's "Rocket Man." The song stuck in my head right now is actually "Levon," but it doesn't have a verse I wanted to use as a title, so, there you go.


End file.
